Antivirus software and DAW's

Hope this wasn't covered somewhere else, as this is my first post here, but it didn't show up in a search of the forums....
 
I'm running Sonar 8 PE.  Haven't had any problems until I recently started running a set of e-drums to trigger the samples in Addictive Drums, while recording the MIDI data in Sonar.  Latency was a big issue with the drums.  After much cleaning up of my system, adding another hard drive, and removing all unneccesary programs, I was able to get the latency *almost* acceptable.  Then I decided to pull the plug on my internet connection, and uninstall Norton 360.    After all that, my system is running great!  Latency is no longer an issue.  My question is; I would still like to connect to the internet occasionally through the pc I use as my DAW.  Does anyone know of an antivirus program that you can actually TURN OFF?  I don't mean just disable the virus protection, but actually turn the program off (short of going into msconfig every single time I want to go online.. and infact, that didn't work with Norton!! It kept overriding my actions!)  I've checked McAfee and MS Security Essentials.  Maybe they're not as intrusive as Norton is, but it doesn't appear you can turn either application off!!   In the meantime I'm jumping from DAW to laptop to get online.  It's inconvenient, so I'm hoping there's an alternative out there that someone knows about!
 
Thanks,
 

Stumpy... I use Microsoft Security Essentials and Malware Bytes.

When I recorded on my lappy, I would shut off the internet and disable the scans and updates. I never had  a problem with latency caused by the AV.

If you're off the net it's safe to shut that stuff off..... but honestly, I think most of the time I just let them run in the background....I did shut off the net with the switch on the side of the lappy.

I think a number of people here have spoken of Norton in terms that are not very kind. I would add Computer Associates to that list as well. It is a huge program that seriously slowed down my computers.

MSSE and Malware bytes are both much lighter and do a fine job. My wife clicked on one of those fake virus removers that is a virus itself....and a quick scan with malware bytes got it and removed it even from the registry locations.